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Why does Karl get all the blame?

BTW I love Greg Miller creeping in this picture on the Ultimate Jordan link:
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A team with Greg Ostertag, Adam Keefe, and Greg Foster making the playoffs is a miracle.

Even the "Big 3" have a few decent players to go along with their superstars. Udonis, Anthony, Miller, and Chalmers could have played big minutes for the Jazz.

Dallas has a ton of talent too. Tyson Chandler is a top 5 center in this league.

The problem with the Jazz was never their 2 best players... It was what they had surrounding them...

This. Has any NBA finals team had worse talent in supporting cast? Maybe Nets of 8ish years ago?
 
If healthy - Seikaly would've provided Utah with the scoring punch they had always been looking for at the pivot. The Jazz simply wanted him to report to SLC so they could examine the extent of his foot injury - but he didn't want to do that without Utah making gaurantees about his contract situation..

whatever..they botched that. Simple as that. Anytime you goof up like that, its on the management. They failed to make the team better and also caused interim chemistry issues that had to be solved by Sloan andthe senior players


Utah had just given Chicago their toughest championship series ever. If they had a roster shakeup and failed to reach the finals – the whiners would be saying “The Bulls were a weaker team in ’98, we should’ve just kept the same team.” .

we did'nt need a "roster shakeup". We just needed better players around the big 3. And I dont think tweaking the lineup would make the team "fail to reach the finals". Thats just BS.


The Bulls went through the same thing Utah did – only worse. Scottie Pippen missed twice as many games as Stockton did and not only did Chicago have a weaker bench than the Jazz, but Jordan had to play the most minutes he had in any season since 1990. Bulls management further depleted their bench by trading away Jason Caffey - their only serviceable big off the bench for nothing in return, and Pippen played Game 6 of the finals with a severely limiting back injury.

But they won in 97, right? BIG difference. They still had one of the best 3-pt shooters in Kerr, a solid PG in Harper, one of the best rebounders/post defenders in Rodman and an upcoming scorer in Kukoc. Thats a lot of solid help for MJ and Pippen. Compared to the scrubs made to look good in the Jazz system. Most of those 98 supporting cast sucked when they left the Jazz for other teams.


Yes, the Fuller trade (only for a 2nd-rnd pick but Fuller was still terrible) and Chilcutt signing sucked, they signed Gilliam after he was waived at midseason when he was the best FA available so that was the best option at the time. However, when you consider the fact that Kevin O’Connor was working for the 76ers during all those moves, I have a hard time blaming him for those transactions

Layden or KOC or whoever it was..the point remains the same. KM didnt get enough help from the Jazz management. KOC was'nt much better by the way with his Starks Meech and Arroyo signings. John Crappy..oops Crotty was the backup to Stockton.
 
I dont care how close the Jazz were in 97, when you go and get your butts kicked you just dont come back with the exact same team, especially when your main players are all pushing 35. If KM/John/Horny were all in their late 20s I'd agree. But clearly they needed better help. They only got ayear older in 1998.
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They kept Adam Keefe as the starting SF. What a idiotic move as the guy had zero skills and they did not learn that from 97. He went on to average 2.8 ppg ad 3.4 rbg versus the Bulls while getting destroyed on defense. But he was hard worker and got to the right spots on the floor.

I will always lay the blame for the ring failure on Sloan more than anyone, mainly for the reason above. He started a guy who should not even been in the league.
 
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They kept Adam Keefe as the starting SF. What a idiotic move as the guy had zero skills and they did not learn that from 97. He went on to average 2.8 ppg ad 3.4 rbg versus the Bulls while getting destroyed on defense. But he was hard worker and got to the right spots on the floor.
Keefe was the 3rd-string SF in '97 behind Russell and Morris. The only reason Keefe was in the starting lineup in '98 was because Bryon Russell asked out of the lineup at the beginning of the season because he was struggling so bad and the Jazz weren't winning. They put Keefe in and started winning so they kept that lineup until the playoffs. When Keefe played against Chicago - it was at PF/C because Chicago was playing an illegal defense and not even pretending to guard Foster/Ostertag. But yeah, in the finals Keefe sucked and could barely make a layup.
 
I think that there was a bigger stigma then (1990's) than now about Salt Lake City/Utah. That's why they had so much trouble getting talented role players here.

There have been a lot of things in the past decade+ which has changed the way people view this market:

I think that the NBA party culture was out of control in the late 90's. You had the Kenny Anderson, Antoine Walker, etc. group of guys that nearly killed the league after Jordan retired. Today's breed of NBA players (a lot of them anyway) seem to be much more professional and interested in winning more than partying.

Having the Olympics here and have it be a success helped with the image of the state/city quite a bit.

The last generation of Jazz players also helped change the way the rest of the league viewed the Jazz. There wasn't nearly as many "clean cut" type of players. A lot of players that looked like the rest of the league. Boozer was the first guy that put that image out there. In our finals runs we had Elders Stockton and Hornacek, Greg "crew-cut" Ostertag, Greg Foster, Adam Keefe leading the charge. All of our African-American players were all really clean cut too. B-Russ, Shandon Anderson, Howard Eisley, Big Dog, and Karl didnt really have tattoos or anything like that.

Also, the Jazz in the Deron-era have played a really exciting, up-tempo style of basketball which was much more attractive than the grinding half-court/execute offense that was played in John and Karl's later years with the team. Much more free-wheeling and fun style to play I'm sure.

Remember when last summer Al Harrington of all people tweeted that he would love to come to Utah to play with Deron? That never would have happened even 10 years ago. Nobody wanted to come here.
 
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